Consumer vs industry trends – part 2

In the last step, we explored some different examples of consumer trends and how they are impacting the wellness industry. Now it’s time to look at industry trends.

Industry Trends

Investing in wellness

Despite the vast economic fallout of COVID-19 in 2020, the wellness industry continued to experience an influx of private investment and successful crowdfunding campaigns, demonstrating its resilience and the wealth of opportunities that still exist across the market. However, this hasn’t always been the case.

Rewind ten years, and the pursuit of wellness was a much harder sell, with many investors unconvinced of its ability to deliver valuable returns. This made it harder for wellness brands to realise their full potential and reach the same levels of growth we see today.

Now, thanks to huge numbers of brands proving market demand and having permeated almost every aspect of modern life, there is a better understanding of wellness’ relevance and ability to generate huge returns on investment. This has made it easier for wellness brands, new and old, to attract and deploy funds, with acquisition opportunities presenting themselves more regularly.

Business insights platform, Crunchbase, estimates that at least a billion dollars in venture funding was raised in 2020 by early-stage technology companies in the health and wellness space [3]. Funding for mental health start-ups has also risen, with venture capital funding of US mental health startups in 2020 outpacing the $1.06 billion invested in 2019, according to PitchBook data [4].

Elsewhere, due to an increase in adoption resulting from COVID-related shifts, food delivery companies, digital fitness and health companies, and corporate health offerings have also seen an uptick in investment.

These stats provide wellness business owners and entrepreneurs with the intel needed to pinpoint where near-future growth and opportunities lie, and the confidence to make better-informed decisions.

The changing face of retail

With many retail outlets and hospitality venues around the globe forced to close temporarily in 2020/2021 during imposed COVID-induced lockdowns, drugstores and grocery chains –– which found themselves classed as essential retailers –– took on new value for wellness businesses.

It opened up the opportunity for savvy wellness brands to leverage new channels of growth, as well as helping to mainstream and normalise wellness products and services more generally, by boosting their presence within more accessible and local environments.

Healthy fast-food brand, Leon, for example, launched a range of retail products in the UK, which can now be bought in supermarket chain, Sainsbury’s. Weight Watchers increased its presence by securing listings for products, including better-for-you chocolate and cereal bars, in pharmacy retailers, Superdrug and Boots (in the UK), while an increasing number of clean beauty insurgents, which previously lived in high-end and specialist retail stores, inked deals with drugstore chains in the US.

This shift exemplified the breadth of opportunity essential retail channels hold for multiple wellness categories, as providers of health and wellness. In impacting the retail strategies of many wellness brands, it helped to propel wellness even further into mainstream consciousness.

Moving forward, for wellness brands, building visibility via drugstores and supermarkets will play a much larger role in long-term growth, and impact the way in which products and services are imagined in order to exist effectively in these types of environments.

What do you think?

After reading the last two steps, how has this changed your original assumptions about the differences between consumer and industry trends, and which have a greater impact?

If you’re a business owner, have any of the trends explored in the last two steps impacted the way you do business? Alternatively, as a consumer, have any of these trends influenced the way you engage with brands? If so how?

Use the Comments section below to share your thoughts and feelings.

References

[1] A Universal Demand for Change

[2] To B or Not to B

[3] Three Categories In The Health And Wellness Industry That Venture Capitalists Are Betting Big On

[4] Driven by Pandemic Demand, Mental Health Startups Surpass 2019 Funding